


Slow Fade

by SLWalker



Category: Justice League of America (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Kingdom Come
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-20
Updated: 2005-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 11:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Takes place during Kingdom Come.  If you haven't read it, you might not understand this.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Slow Fade

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Kingdom Come. If you haven't read it, you might not understand this.

"Have you seen Bea lately? She really let herself go."

Ted debated on the ole 'pot and kettle' saying, and decided against it. None of them looked particularly brilliant or dashing these days -- the ravages of time had marked most of them. At least, the ones who aged. Instead, he just shrugged.

Booster shuffled the papers across his desk; inventory, accounting, and he was getting audited. Again. "I mean, I know we're not exactly young anymore, but..."

"When did she come to see you?" Ted asked, crossing his arms as he sat on the corner of the desk.

"A few days ago. I only had a couple of minutes to talk to her, though. Apparently, Warrior's is still doing okay business." Booster finally gave up trying to get his paperwork neat, and leaned back in his seat. "Not the same crowd that used to go there."

"That doesn't shock me, after Guy..." The former Blue Beetle shook his head after a moment.

It was hard sometimes to reconcile the brash, foul-mouthed, carrot topped Green Lantern with the man that had died one spring day, seven years before. Neither Booster Gold nor Blue Beetle had been there when it happened, but they had both seen the news footage and instinctively found one another that evening; stunned and miserable, they sat in silence together and mourned.

On one hand, they remembered Guy Gardner at his worse... his most arrogant, short-tempered incarnation. But it had been years since he had been that. The man they knew more recently was a teacher again, long retired from the hero business -- he was the teacher that adults looked back on and said of, "He changed my life."

In one of the many fights that now broke out on an hourly basis between metahumans, the school he was teaching at got trashed. The firefighters and police couldn't get there in time; there was no Justice League to step in, and the heroes were gone.

Except Guy.

He had done his best to get the students to safety, to evacuate them, to get them away from the danger. He saved three hundred and fifteen before the building came down, while everyone else just panicked. Twenty-nine more died, and he tried to save them, too. In the end, it cost him his own life.

The last footage they had seen of him was when the rescue crews were clearing rubble and found him there. And in this modern day, where the word 'hero' was almost a curse, they saw their former teammate and friend, faded red hair matted with blood, body broken, clutching a child in a last ditch effort to shield her from the collapse.

The funeral was quiet; just a handful of people. His staff from Warrior's, Booster, Beetle, Dinah, Ollie and Bea. That was it. Not even Alan came to say goodbye. Bea took over Warrior's, as provisioned in Guy's will, and they all went back to their own lives.

Booster rubbed at his eyes, dragging himself back to the present. "I still think you need to get out."

Ted sighed. They had this conversation just about every other day. "I can't. This is a delicate operation, I can't just bail out. Besides, if it all works out the way Bruce wants it to, things are going to finally get better."

"He's going to get you killed!" Maybe it was reliving the death of Guy, or maybe it was that sense that things were getting worse by the day, but whatever it was, it didn't sit well with Booster Gold. He pushed to his feet, then had to grab the edge of his desk when his leg gave out.

"Look, we have a plan. And now that the Justice League is back in town, they need me more than ever." Ted looked over at his friend, forcing himself not to wince in sympathy. "Michael... sit down. Please?"

A little disarmed by the tone (and Ted calling him Michael), Booster sank back into the chair. They both knew that his leg wouldn't stand up to any real use; the only reason he still had the leg was because he was so careful with it. "I'm sick of losing friends," he finally said, after a long moment. "And Bats has a habit of destroying everything he touches."

"His past track record might not be great, but he's done a lot of good. I mean, maybe it's in quieter ways, but..."

"What about J'onn?"

"That wasn't his fault."

Silence fell for a long time. Neither of them knew entirely what to say, and they knew that in this area, they would never agree. Sometimes, Ted wondered if it had been wise to let his best friend in on what he was doing with all of his free time, but the truth was, he needed someone to talk to about it. Someone he could trust. The ever-more-intricate plans that the Batman made could make or break an entire world, and that was a lot to shoulder.

"So, you're getting audited?" the Blue Beetle asked, just to break the silence.

"Yeah. Again." Booster was still feeling foul, but he was at least making an effort to change the subject. He closed his eyes, wearily. "Happens every other year. I'm good at getting through it."

"At least business is really good." Actually, Planet Krypton was the most popular restaurant on the east coast. Ted had been a little mortified by it when Booster had started the place up; it seemed so tacky, and garish and childish, and exploitative to boot. But at the grand opening, when he saw the nostalgia and sorrow and hope on his friend's face, he realized what the place was really all about.

It was a reminder. Of happier times, of dreams now lost, of better things. It was stuffed with pieces of history, on display for the public to look at and remember. And if it seemed tacky and garish, it was only because people chose to view it that way.

There was only one piece of the Blue Beetle in the whole place, though; a picture that hung on the wall of Booster's office of the JLI, taken a lifetime ago. J'onn had taken it, and in it they were all together watching a game on television, back when sports were still played. It was ridiculous to see them all in uniform on the couch and in front of it, cheering and silly and happy.

It was ridiculous, but it was wonderful.

"I have to go," Ted said, again breaking the silence. "We've got a meeting in about an hour, and I gotta get ready."

Booster just nodded, not opening his eyes. "I guess I'll see you later, then."

"Yeah." Ted stood, heading for the door. "I'll try to keep you up to date, anyway. And if you need any help with the audit..."

"Yeah." A pause. "Be careful?"

"I will be." And with that, he was gone.

 

* * *

 

There was no later.

They had spoken on the phone a handful of times; the League built a gulag, the world became more and more chaotic. Things kept coming up.

Booster Gold survived his audit, survived the fall-off of business as people became more nervous and wanted to stay as far away from anything that would remind them of heroes as they could. Honestly, he couldn't blame them.

He sat alone in Planet Krypton after it was closed, for hours at a time, and reflected. Sometimes he even braved taking a short walk, though he knew better than to try it without the crutches. Once, in his apartment, he pulled his own uniform out and sat on the bed staring at the blue and gold fabric.

Sometimes he dreamed that this was all a dream, and then he woke up and it was real.

He went to visit Guy's grave the day before it happened, just to make sure that it was still upkept. Somehow, it didn't surprise him that there were flowers and pictures left there, not from Guy's old comrades, but from his grown students... the ones that he had saved.

The next day, the earth shook.

There was no video footage this time. No camera to witness those terrible, final moments. The news caught it only after the fact, and couldn't send anyone to investigate; all that was known was what Superman said when he came back to the UN.

And as Booster watched, teeth grinding together, the Man of Steel told the world what had happened. Wonder Woman and Batman stood at his side, and the survivors clustered around.

He didn't need to be told that Ted wasn't among them. Didn't need to see. Just knew. He hated them in that moment.

No one came to tell him; he had been off their radar for a very long time. Instead, he made his way to Warrior's and hobbled in the door, and saw Bea sitting behind the bar with tears streaming down her wrinkled face and hated them even more.

They were the only ones left now; everyone else was gone. They spent the rest of the evening sitting in the closed bar, hanging onto each other, crying, talking, once in awhile even chuckling before it dissolved into tears all over again.

"It didn't have to be like this," Bea said, over and over, sobbing into his shoulder. He understood; in one fell swoop, they were all that was left of their teams. The old wounds opened again; Tora, Guy, the rest, added to new wounds... Ralph, Kara, Mary, Billy... Ted. Everyone.

Except, of course, the big name heroes.

It took them almost eight hours before the tears finally stopped. Anger remained, along with emptiness. Before he left, to go who knows where, she said, "If they ever come into your place, I want you to spit on their food."

It was childish, and silly, and he loved her for it.

 

* * *

 

It took Booster a long time to start functioning again in any real sense of the word. He and the restaurant survived only because Ted had left him what remained of his personal fortune... he didn't spend much time there, though.

Instead, he spent time at Warrior's, and wandering the places they had all once loved. Spent time trying to find closure. He even tried going to church once or twice, but he couldn't bear it and stopped quickly. All around, the world was becoming brighter and better and happier, and he almost couldn't bear that either.

Superman flew over once, and he flipped the Man of Steel off.

Business picked up again now that the 'heroes' were really back, and eventually he did go back to running the restaurant. It was hard, but once in awhile something wonderful did happen... once, one of Guy's former students came in, and left a picture of the former Green Lantern; not being a hero, but standing at the front of his classroom teaching. Booster made it a point to put that in a place of honor. Another time, he was paid a visit by the only surviving Marvel -- a young man, middle teens, who looked a good deal like his mother and applied for a job as a cook. Naturally, Booster gave it to him.

Bea hung around more; sometimes they stayed at Planet Krypton, sometimes they hung out at Warrior's and every time they toasted their lost friends.

It was towards the end of that first year that Booster finally made a memorial to Ted, not in the restaurant, but in a vacant tract of land in Chicago. It wasn't fancy or flashy, it was just a place for children to come and study insects and participate in yearly science fairs and it was named Kord Park.

He wished he could have done more; wished even more that he could have said goodbye.

 

* * *

 

"Hi Booster," Charlie said, tossing the slab of steak onto the range.

Booster hobbled through the kitchen, pausing to give Charlie a grin. The kid was working out well; if he stuck around, Booster thought he would make an excellent manager someday. "Keeping busy, Freeman?"

"Yes sir." The boy leaned over, pointing toward the steak. "You're not gonna believe this, but I'm making this for Batman."

Booster didn't even question that; the former Whiz would know what he was talking about. He patted the kid on the shoulder, then made his way back to the doors. Sure enough, sitting out there was not only Batman, but Wonder Woman and Superman as well. Amusingly enough, the patrons didn't even take notice.

Staring at the white-haired man that once struck terror into everyone, including him, he felt that old familiar rage building inside of him. That bastard had lived.

That bastard had gotten Ted killed.

Everything he touched, he destroyed.

There was a picture that Booster wanted to show him; the JLI, taken by J'onn, watching a game in uniform, laughing and silly and alive. He wanted to drag that old man to Guy's grave, to Kord Park, to Warrior's and make him look Bea in the eye. He wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and rage, "You self-righteous prick, you got everyone killed! You got my best friend killed."

He wanted to, but he knew he never would. Instead, he went back to where Charlie was putting the steak on the plate, and picked up the tray himself. "I'll deliver it, kiddo."

"Okay," Charlie said, putting the Batman's steak onto the tray.

Booster smirked and balanced the tray on one hand, limping along with the crutch under his other arm. Right before he got to the door, he paused, looked at the food...

...and spit on the steak.

He handed it off to Jeannie, who was their waitress, and none the wiser. And as she took the food out to them, Booster smiled and headed for his office.

For the first time since Ted had died, he did something that was childish, and silly. It felt good.

Bea would love it.


End file.
